“No. They are Leopard Men.” He spat. “They’re not getting my plane!”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Michelle released rubbery bubbles at the remaining leopards. He nodded, jammed his gun into his holster, and climbed into the plane. Michelle followed, yanking the door shut behind her.
Joey sat on one hip on the far seat. Her leg was bleeding and stained her pants brownish red. There were four deep gashes in her flesh and blood was welling up in them. Japhet climbed into the pilot’s seat and started the plane down the dirt runway.
“Do you have a first-aid kit in here?” Michelle asked. She glanced out the windshield and saw the end of the runway—and the jungle where it stopped—coming up way too fast. “Christ, we’re not going to make it.”
Japhet just laughed and pulled back hard on the throttle. The plane shuddered, bounced up and down a couple of times, then rose in the air. Michelle could hear jungle foliage whapping the underside of the plane.
“No first-aid kit,” he said. “There’s a bottle of water you can use to clean the wound and I have a clean T-shirt in one of those packages.” He pointed to the string bags he’d brought from the village earlier that were now on the floor in front of Michelle’s feet. “You can use it for a bandage. It’s one of those wrapped up in brown paper.”
She pulled the first twine-tied parcel out and held it up. “Is it in here?” she asked. He nodded. She undid the twine and discovered a couple of T-shirts, underwear, and socks. “That’s what you were doing in the village? Your laundry?”
“No,” he said defensively. “Laundry is woman’s work. There’s a widow who does it for me. I give her money and bring medicine for her boy from Kisangani and she washes for me.”
Michelle rolled her eyes, grabbed one of the T-shirts, and retied the package. “You got a knife?” He nodded and fished one out of his pants pocket and handed it to her. “Thanks.” She crawled back to Joey. “This is going to hurt.”
“Just do something, you fucker,” Joey said. Her voice trembled and Michelle knew she was crying.
Michelle got to work tearing up the T-shirt. The jungle slid by below them, every mile bringing her closer and closer to Adesina.
In the Jungle, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Through the gap between the hills ahead of them, there was a line of darker blue. Lake Tanganyika.
The sight filled Jerusha with hope. Maybe, maybe she could do this . . .
They had moved into less fractured ground. The hills were lower now, the jungle beginning to give way to more open ground. They were moving across a wide field of tall grass, making good time, following a half-hidden trail. People obviously came this way occasionally. The sun beat down on them, but after the half gloom of the jungle, it felt good to see unbroken sky overhead. She was hoping to find another village, perhaps a phone . . .
Waikili was walking alongside her, his hand grasping hers. She felt his fingers tighten. “Bibbi . . .” he said. “He comes again . . .”
“Cesar! Everyone!” Jerusha shouted as she dropped Waikili’s hand. “Watch—”
There was no time to say more. She saw the grass rippling to the right of the path they followed. She heard the roar of the monster. She heard the children shrill in alarm and someone’s gun firing widly. She saw the ruff of tan hide as the hyena-lion leapt and heard the terrible clashing of its jaws.
She saw it toss a child’s torn body aside even as she ran toward it. Cesar and Gamila were firing into the grass, the chatter of the gunfire causing birds to erupt from the trees bordering the field and tearing the frond of grass. “Stop!” she told them, panting. “Wait until you can see him . . .”
The silence was deafening, the roar of the weapons still echoing. Three of the children were badly injured, claw-raked as the were-creature had passed through the line, and there were two still bodies with other children around them: Pili and Chaga. “Are they . . . ?” The children didn’t need to answer. She knew. “Waikili,” she said. “Is he still there?”
“Yes, Bibbi Jerusha. He has decided it’s time to end the game.”
Jerusha nodded. “Cesar, Gamila,” she said. She was staring into the field, at the faint path of trampled grass where the boy had gone. “Take the children and keep moving.”
“Bibbi . . .”
“Do it,” she snapped, not looking at him.
She heard him call out to the children both in French and Baluba. She heard them pick up Eason’s stretcher, heard them half run down the path away from the bodies. She rummaged in her seed pouch, cast seeds in a close circle around her.
“I know you’re there,” she called out in French. “I’m here. I’m alone. You want to end this? Then take me first.”
Laughter answered her from the grass.
“Come on,” she told him. “I’m waiting for you.”
There was more laughter, moving now, sliding to her left. She turned toward the sound.
He came almost too fast for her, a blur of motion. Jerusha tore at the seeds she’d scattered with her mind, and a mass of thornbushes lifted toward the sky, the black knives of the bushes snagging and tearing at the hyena body of the child ace, lifting him in midleap. Even so, the claws of his right paw ripped along her arm and Jerusha cried out in pain and shock. She could smell his foul breath, and her face was spattered with his saliva as he roared. As the thornbushes lifted him, the beast struggled in their grasp and she stabbed him a thousand times with the long black thorns. Branches broke and tore, scattering black snow as he tore at them furiously. The claws raked at the thorns, at her, at air; she retreated, still trying to wrap him in her dark, deadly cage. She could feel him slipping loose.
Too strong. She could not hold him. He was too strong.
He roared. The branches holding him creaked and splintered even as she tried to strengthen them.
Then she heard Cesar shout, heard his weapon fire. The were-thing screamed as the bullets tore into its tan hide, as Jerusha wrapped yet more thorn limbs around the beast to hold it, to slow it. And suddenly, it was no longer a beast but a naked child snagged in thorns and dying, his own face shattered and broken. Cesar was still firing, and the child’s body shuddered and writhed from the impact of the bullets. “Stop!” Jerusha screamed at Cesar. “Stop. It’s over.”
The gunfire ended. Blood dripped to the ground from the still, broken form. Jerusha turned away from the sight, unable to look. Cesar was grinning, and she hated the look of triumph and satisfaction on his face.
The grass swayed near the path, and another boy emerged: the emaciated child, just a hand’s reach from her. He had a waif’s face, with eyes too large and too sad in his sunken face, his belly drawn tightly in, his arms and legs no more than sticks. His mouth was open, as if he were trying to speak.
“Bibbi!” She heard Cesar calling to her in alarm. “No!”
The child glanced from the body in the tree to Jerusha, his eyes shimmering with tears. “You can come with us,” she told him. “You don’t have to be with them anymore. You can be free of all this. I can help you. I’ll get you to people who can help you.”
He cocked his head toward her as she spoke. Jerusha didn’t know if he understood her French, but she hoped he could understand the tone. She held out her hand toward him, and he took it in his. She could feel the trembling in his fingers, could feel bones under the thin wrapping of skin and tendons.
His hand tightened on hers. He pulled her arm forward, and as she stumbled to catch her balance, his mouth yawned open and he bit down hard on her forearm.
“No!” She didn’t know if the shout came from her or Cesar. The boy grinned at her, licking lips dark with her blood. The wound burned, as if his saliva were acid. Cesar’s gun stuttered and the child ran, plunging back into the high grass. “Stop!” Jerusha shouted: at the child, at Cesar. She cradled her injured arm to her belly. “Stop! Come back!”
Cesar came running to her. He looked at her arm, and she saw his eyes fill with
tears. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m fine. It’s just a bite. He’s gone. We’ve won here. It’s over. Come on, let’s go get the others.”
“Bibbi Jerusha . . .”
“I’m fine,” she told him sternly. “Let’s go. I’m fine.”
She hoped that she was right.
Ubundu, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“This can’t be kisangani,” Michelle said. The landing strip was cracked mud and ruts, surrounded by thick jungle. Not a building was in sight. “Kisangani is a city.”
“Kisangani was a city,” Japhet said. “Now?” He shrugged. “There’s an airport in Kisangani, yes, but they aren’t fond of independent contractors like me. The cut they want of my merchandise is outrageous. There are police at the Kisangani airport, too. And soldiers, and Leopard Men, and men in suits who ask inconvenient questions about flight plans and passengers. It is better here in the jungle. The people living here keep a runway clear and I bring them what they need.”
“Capitalism at its best,” Michelle murmured.
“And the two of you have already been more trouble than I bargained for.”
Michelle smiled at him. “It looks like you know your way around trouble.”
He gave her a toothy grin. “That I do.”
“Where are we, then?”
“Outside Ubundu. Kisangani is that way.” He pointed. “From here you must walk. If you lose your way, find the Congo and follow it downstream. It was a pleasure to meet you, Bubbles.” He took her hand and shook it. “Get your friend to a doctor. Wounds go bad fast in the jungle.”
“I’ll do my best,” she replied. By the time they heard his engine roar past overhead, she and Joey were already deep in the green, making their way through thick underbrush.
Japhet had left them a machete, and that was certainly a help. But Joey was not happy. “Fucking asshole,” she complained. “Look at this shit. Walk, he says. There’s no fucking road. And where are the elephants? I thought Africa was full of fucking elephants. Their own graveyards and everything. One dead elephant, that’s all I need, we could fucking ride to Kisangani.”
With every step they took toward Kisangani, Joey grew more and more agitated. By late afternoon, she was furious. “You don’t fucking know, Bubbles,” she muttered. “You can’t feel it. There’s dead shit all around. Kids, dead kids. So many dead kids. I can feel the little fuckers rotting in the ground.”
Michelle gave her a shake. “Okay, I got it. Dead kids. A lot of them.” And one who is still alive.
Joey looked up with a furious expression on her face. “You’re the coldest bitch I’ve ever known, Bubbles. I’m telling you about fuck only knows how many dead children, and you don’t give two brown shits. Ink would never have acted this way.”
Michelle released her. “I’m not Ink. Thanks for the insight. But those children are dead. We can’t do a damn thing about them. Adesina is still alive.”
Joey glared at her, but there was a weird glassy-eyed quality to it. Michelle put her wrist to Joey’s forehead.
“Christ,” she said. “You’re burning up.” She squatted down and pulled the bandage up to look at Joey’s leg wound. It was bright red and swollen. “We need to get this looked at. Soon. Look, when we find Adesina, we’ll find out who killed those other kids. If there are as many dead as you say, there has to be some sort of record. We’ll do something.”
Joey grabbed her arm. “You fucking promise, Michelle? Do you swear?” She swayed a little. Michelle suddenly felt horrible for bringing her along. Yeah, Joey could raise zombies, but she was as fragile as any nat herself and still a kid herself in many ways.
“I promise,” she said.
The Red House
Outside Bunia, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
The sun had left the sky, leaving only a lavender glow with a hint of blood to silhouette the trees on the ridge west of the huge and complicated old red-brick colonial mansion. Bugs called from the chopped-back trees and brush. Something big and dark—either a bat or a really humongous moth—flew past Tom’s head to vanish over the steeply pitched slate roof.
In the grey-velvet twilight stood Alicia Nshombo, stuffed not quite successfully into a dark tunic and jodhpurs. Her secret-police boss suit, Tom thought as he hovered briefly before the white-roofed portico. A slight man in a doctor’s coat fairly hopped from foot to foot at her side.
As Tom touched down on the grass Alicia trundled forward to catch him in her usual moist embrace. “Dear Tom,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, “welcome to the Red House. This is Dr. Washikala. He’s the director of our facility here.”
Washikala swallowed before saying, “It’s an honor to meet you, Field Marshal Mokèlé-mbèmbé.” At Alicia’s gesture the little doctor turned and trotted up the steps to open the door. Tom started to follow.
From somewhere out of sight around the house to his left he heard children wailing and crying. There was a big frame annex there. He stopped with one foot up on a step.
The noise quit. An engine revved. A moment later a panel truck rumbled past. A beat later a black Land Cruiser followed. The man in the passenger seat wore unmistakable Leopard Man drag: a brimless leopard-skin hat and sunglasses at night. The others wore the cammies of PPA regulars—second line infantry, not Simbas.
Tom stood frowning after them until the guards at the brick house to the north had opened the wrought-iron gates with the spiky tops. The truck headed off toward the west, its yellow beams bouncing like an insect’s feelers before it, up the flank of a ridge scraped bare for a hundred yards beyond the wire. The Cruiser followed.
Dr. Washikala cleared his throat. “Comrade Field Marshal. If you please—”
Alicia seemed to be studying Tom intently. Without a word Tom mounted the steps and went inside.
A strong chemical smell filled the air. It must be some kind of cleaning agent. Washikala trotted past as if afraid he’d burst into flames if the sleeve of his coat so much as brushed Tom. Alicia walked by his side. “So you come at last to the heart of the matter,” she said.
“Who am I here to see?”
“Two most promising products,” Dr. Washikala said. “Moto. The name is self-explanatory: it means fire in Lingala. You should exercise caution. He doesn’t have perfect control of his abilities yet. The second we call Martial Eagle. For our largest African eagle. She’s”—he glanced nervously at Alicia—“she’s a joker-ace, really. She has the head and wings of the eagle; the rest is a normal if undernourished eleven-year-old female.”
“And why did you accept her?” Alicia sounded as if she was on the verge of being disappointed.
“Oh, Eldest Sister,” the doctor squeaked. “We thought—surely she can serve the Revolution. She flies.” He looked imploringly at Tom with liquid-brown eyes.
“Could she carry a kid?” Tom asked.
“Oh, yes. I—I’m sure of it.”
“We can use her. If that’s true.”
“Bon,” Alicia said, beaming. “The doctor guarantees it.” She gave the doctor a meaningful look. Before she could continue a sound reached their ears. Tom recognized the snarl of distant machine-gun fire. Neither the sturdy brick walls nor the bulk of a ridge sufficed to mute the unmistakable sound.
Tom narrowed eyes at Alicia. “You must understand, Tom,” she said. “We get so many black queens and jokers.”
“And of course there are the deuces,” said Dr. Washikala. He seemed eager to establish his bona fides as a hard-ass after the near faux pas with Martial Eagle.
“What do you think?” Alicia said, sounding half worried and half, strangely, sympathetic.
“I think,” Tom said, “you got to break eggs to make omelets. Now, show me to my two new recruits.”
Wednesday,
December 23
Lake Tanganyika, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
The lake seemed as vast as the country they had already traversed.
It lay in front of them, endless, the horizon fading into sky.
Jerusha sat on the lakeshore with her children gathered around her. They had come out of the jungle north of Kalemie. Since the attack by the two child aces, Jerusha had found herself driven to the edge of exhaustion. Her body burned. Her clothes fit too loosely.
And the hunger . . .
She was eternally famished, but it wasn’t a hunger that food could assuage. She had grown banana trees and mangos for the children, given them brief gardens of vegetables so they could eat, and she had taken her meals with them, but they didn’t fill her. Nothing filled her. Her body seemed a vast emptiness, scorched by whatever the child’s bite had injected into her. Her body was eating itself, slowly, burning away fat and muscle and tissue to keep itself going.
And she was tired. So tired.
She fumbled with the seeds left in her pouch and stared at the lake. There were thirty miles or more of deep water between them and Tanzania—she could not bridge that, not even if she had thousands of seeds. They could try to run back into the jungle again, but they would be found. There was no help for them, not here in the PPA.
Through the heated fog in her head, she tried to think of a solution, her fingers fumbling with the seeds. The last time she’d tried to cross the lake, with Wally, the patrol boat, leaving them clinging to the dying baobab . . .
A tree. A tree would float.
There were three baobab seeds left in her pouch. She plucked out one of them, tossing it as far as she could into the lake, opening the seed as it flew through the air: a massive trunk, but yes, bend the branches upward so that it made the skeleton of a hull, big enough that all of them could cling to the branches. A few of the branches she spread out flat and thick like pontoons, so that the strongest swimmers could hold on there and kick with their legs to move them. The roots and top she fanned out high and large, so that perhaps it would catch the east-flowing wind and help them.
It was an awkward boat, a terribly slow ark. But it would suffice. It would have to suffice.